Test Your 4th Generation iPad with These 9 Games

The 9 Best Games for Challenging Your iPad 4's Processor

As iPad shooters go, it doesn't get more intense than the latest installment in Modern Combat, Gameloft's Call of Duty-inspired franchise for mobile. Many of the graphical details -- such as smoke, motion blur and gunfire -- look eerily realistic, even if there are a few jagged lines in the scenery (the designers' notes say the game is optimized for the iPhone 5).

With so much potential, it's good the controls are customizable, and the game gets even more immersive in gyroscope mode, which changes your point of view as you move the tablet. If you get too into it, you might have to switch to playing it on Xbox Kinect.

Infinity Blade II is a great modern-day take on adventure gaming, plus it has lots of insanely cool fights thrown in. The one-on-one combat is beautifully rendered for the retina display, it's not too violent (there's no actual blood), and the opponents and weaponry are varied enough to quell any feelings of repetition. There's a reason it's been one of the most popular iPad games since it debuted in December 2011.

Space battle! Galaxy on Fire 2 HD mixes a compelling narrative with blasting things to smithereens in this great-looking interstellar combat game. The best part about it is you can choose how taxing the graphics are in the game's settings -- all the way up to full retina resolution. Fighter combat is already extremely immersive by design, but the stars, space stations and asteroids are downright gorgeous at 2,048 x 1,536 pixels.

Based on the popular comic and TV series, The Walking Dead is an adventure game that sees you play Lee, a convicted felon given a second chance when the world goes to hell.

The action sequences are few, but they get the blood pumping thanks in large part to how responsive the animation is, and with the iPad 4, the transitions between segments are cut down significantly. The fifth and final episode, "No Time Left," is finally out, letting you live (probably) the rest of Lee's story.

Miss Tomb Raider? Lili is sort of the lighter, more supernatural version of that. You play the title character, exploring a "legendary" tropical island while meeting quirky characters and having adventures. Controls are dirt-simple, but the graphics sure aren't, responding fluidly when you touch and drag to quickly scan the entire landscape around your avatar. It could use more material and some bug fixes, but there's no question Lili's charming world is addictive.

There are plenty of racing games, but the experience of Asphalt 7 has the right balance of skill vs. a "rails" mentality, letting you run yourself off the road if you so desire. Oh, and the graphics simply rock, rendering scenescapes like the Hawaii skyline with great perspectives. The most important part of gameplay -- response to the gyroscope -- is instantaneous, and there's very little waiting when you level up.

There's nothing like a little robot-on-robot action to open the door to copious amounts of gloriously destructive violence. Blowing up 'bot after 'bot in Epoch can get repetitive, but it's certainly fun to do while tumbling and leaping to avoid their counterstrikes. It gets hard quickly, but the graphics never falter, with superb detail in the arena-like environments. As metal-on-metal goes, it's at the top of the pack.

It's not exactly Halo, but that doesn't mean it's lacking on carnage or gameplay. N.O.V.A. 3 launches you directly into combat, ready for the slaughter (both yours and the enemy's). Both the environments and weaponry in the game look fantastic on the retina display, with beautiful color, detail and lighting (including nice glints off the guns). Whether you control the action by touch or gyroscope, the iPad 4 keeps up. The question is: Can you?

If there's a Galaga for 2012, it's ARC Squadron on the iPad. Though not as immersive as Galaxy on Fire 2 HD, it has the virtue of offering up targets, obstacles and bonus objects at a ferocious pace while you fly a ship deep into some kind of space war (does it really matter?). Although the controls are a little clunky, it's nonstop barrell-rolling fun, except for the occasional transition -- mercifully short in the iPad 4.

When we reviewed the fourth-generation iPad last month, we judged its A6X processor to be a workhorse. Compared to the A5X in the previous iPad (which has the same retina display), the iPad 4 ran more than twice as fast — making it easily the best-performing mobile product Apple has ever built.

Too bad there aren't many apps that can take advantage of all that processing power. As with most platforms, the apps that tax your iPad's system the most are graphic-intensive games — precisely why the A6X has a quad-core design for its GPU (the main difference between it and the iPhone 5's A6 chip).

All existing retina games were designed to run on the iPad 3, so seriously taxing your iPad 4's chip is hard to do. Still, even if actual gameplay is relatively unaffected, other aspects of the experience (bootup and transition times, for example) will improve.

Your iPad 4 will also use less power, and thus be less inclined to get warm than an iPad 3 performing the same tasks. That lets you play longer in more comfort. The first game titles since the release of iPad 4 are beginning to launch (such as this week's Modern Combat, and some may even start to give the A6X a serious workout.

Keeping all that in mind, we've assembled this list of the most processor-challenging games for your brand new iPad 4. We've included the prices so you can budget your App Store gift card accordingly.

Did we miss any good ones? Please remind us (politely) in the comments.

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